World Cup Cominacha

The excitement is down here and it needs to be up here. Come on people, the US has a legitimate chance to make it out of the group stage, training camp has started (with some key position battles turning out to be very interesting), and a healthy US squad that should be in good form for the England game on June 12.

I will offer more thoughts in the coming weeks, but mark my words right now - Herculez Gomez will contribute to this squad. I'm not saying he'll displace Jozy from the starting lineup, but he'll come close. Gomez is a gamer and his knack for finding the net is back. Bob Bradley needs to recognize this and get Gomez into the starting lineup for the Czech Republic game. Same goes for Edson Buddle. These guys are on a tear and Bradley may have lucked out and found himself a threatening striker not named Charlie Davies. HUGE.

Another wild card: Beas. Great quote from Donovan about Beas' attitude:

"In Holland in March [for the U.S. friendly], we saw the DaMarcus that we know. Something has clicked in his head and he is figuring out now what it takes to be an elite player. Now we see that again. It's nice because, when he is playing well, he is a really good player that can be a very big part of this team. All of us that know Beas well are really pulling and hoping he makes it. ... We all figure things out at certain points, and it just seems like something has switched on and he realizes what this means. It's good to see him passionate and really wanting this."

Finally, start reading these blogs for soccer news:

Soccer Insider (Steve Goff from the Washington Post). Some national team news, some DC united news.

Soccerbyives (Ives Garcelep writes for FoxSoccer). I question whether or not this guy actually knows his soccer, but he gets pretty interesting stories.

duNord. This guy took a mental health year in 2009, but is back. Great aggregator of US Soccer news. Kind of a homer, but what do you expect from an overweight guy in Minnesota?

What else you got?